Turning Over a New Leaf

 Picture it- October 2020... I don't have to explain to anyone that 2020 was a dumpster fire of a year. We were blessed in the fact that we didn't lose anyone to COVID-19, but we did experience a magnitude of disappointment. 

My fiance and I were to get married on March 21st. Five days before our big day, everything shut down, and the wedding was canceled. We rescheduled for November, certain life as we know it would be back to normal by then. However, in June, our wedding venue made the difficult decision to shut down for the remainder of the year. We canceled everything again and finally decided to just have a micro-wedding in October in Hermann, MO. (While that wasn't the big, elaborate event we had envisioned for our union, it ended up being absolutely perfect.) 

Meanwhile, my daughter was a senior in high school in 2020. School closed, prom was canceled, no final goodbyes to her underclassmen friends, graduation was postponed and postponed again until July. I was so angry at all the rites of passage she was missing. 

At that same time, my son turned sixteen in April. No parties, no big celebration, no grandiose event marking this milestone birthday. And worst of all, no friends. Just his immediate family and a few gifts. 

Couple all of that with my health issues, (oh, so this is neat... I have an autoimmune disorder where I'm allergic to my own body and break out in hives for no known reason. I am not supposed to change my core temperature, I'm allergic to the sun, and basically I'm a mogwai with a whole list of rules to follow or I'll bubble up into an itching, miserable ball of suck.) and I was pretty down. I'd lost interest in all of my hobbies, didn't really have anything to do to distract me from life/work stressors, and I needed something to help me escape my obsession with finding a cure for my disorder that no specialist has even been able to crack. 

So, back to October 2020. My best friend of thirty years became a house plant hobbyist in July of that year and kept telling me I needed to give it a try. Decades of dead house plants rolled through my memories, and I told her I didn't think I'd even be allowed in a nursery with how awful my plant care skills were. She persisted and planned a tour of several nurseries in the greater St. Louis area. Watching her like a kid in a toy store was super fun, and the more she talked and ooo'ed and ahh'ed, the more I wanted to take a few plants home and just see what the fuss was all about. 

I bought four plants that day, came home and researched them, read as many articles as I could about proper ways to care about them, started a Pinterest board with my plant care instructions, gave them names, and I'm pretty sure if I knitted, they'd all have had little tiny scarves by the end of the weekend. Instantly, I loved them and even more than that, I loved learning again. Having something else to focus on, something that needed me, something that satisfied that maternal yearning to provide care without upsetting, offending, overstepping, or interfering. I had a new purpose. I clapped and giggled for new growth just as I had with my children when they sat up for the first time, took their first steps, and basically hit every milestone throughout the last twenty years of my life. When they outgrew their pots, I bragged on how big and strong they're getting and felt a sense of accomplishment - like, I could really do this! 

So, that's how it began. That was eight wonderful months ago. Next time, I'll share some of the funnier moments I've experienced with my newfound passion. Until then, I'll be obsessively checking the tracking on my three new plant babies which should arrive in the mail in the next few days. *grabby hands, grabby hands* 

Take care of you and each other, and maybe get a plant! :)

Tami